BBCSH 'Guises and Disguises'
by tigersilver
Summary: Sherlock is a master of hiding in plain sight.


BBCSH 'Guises and Disguises'

Author: tigersilver

Rating: PG-13 (language)

Pairing: Sherlock/John (or maybe a bit gen BFF, but whatever)

Word Count: 2000

Summary: 'Sherlock and the Bard', or 'How it is that Sherlock's _very _clever'

Sherlock's very clever. Alarmingly so. He _is_, really.

Sherlock's sure brooding is one of the best disguises he's ever thought of. For example, if _he's_ swanning round the flat, playing Paganini and Mendelssohn at all ungodly hours in his dressing ground, John is hardly going to fail to believe he's finally fully registering the myriad meanings of 'sentiment'. If _he's_ making much of silly little—as in, now utterly useless to him, being solved and resolved—objects such as The Woman's old mobile, then all to the better for verisimilitude.

It's a double-blind, Sherlock's deeper game, and it's the one that is of such huge importance it reduces the game with Moriarty to a sodding minor insignificance—a catalyst, nothing more. And it's shatteringly simple to place into action. _And_ John—his empathetically foolish friend John-appears to be more than willing to not look too deeply into whom it may be his disturbingly odd flatmate _really_ feels 'sentiment' _for_.

It's Christmas, is what. Best acting role he's ever assayed, this one, and the longest running ever. His audience of one is so beautifully, gorgeously, _conveniently _cooperating bysuspending his natural disbelief, too. Sherlock adores John's endless ability to_ believe_ in him. Can't ask for much better than that, can he?

Sherlock is positive he's not fooled his elder brother in the slightest but John was already in process of halfheartedly blaming The Woman for Sherlock's dire stretch of flouncing and mewping, which is most incredibly convenient. He actually inwardly blesses Mycroft's meddling—oh the agony-for insinuating into John's head the full-blown concept that _Sherlock is finally in love_…with The Woman.

And She has only gone and done Sherlock another excellent favour, really, by being exactly what she is in John's honest eyes: mysterious, sexy, savvy and registering at well above the national average in intelligence, and then by going one further and employing her clever tongue and her dexterous testing fingers for starting mischief. In other words, _She _is precisely the sort of appropriate mate Sherlock might acquire for himself, if so inclined to venture into the 'Area'. Per John.

Well, per John via way of a bit of furtive manipulation, naturally, but all's fair, is it not? Sherlock truly ascribes to this old saw, really he does. People are so predictable. At least this time he's not drugged him.

In fact, She's been so very bewilderingly upfront with John (for her own nefarious cross-purposes, of course, but that's incidental) that odds are very good that John has already discounted as so much confusing rubbish her startlingly spot-on accusation (Sherlock has this momentous meeting captured on a video on his mobile, for ready reference) that John might care more for Sherlock than one normally does for a friend…and that perhaps Sherlock also in turn cares more for _John_. John, thankfully, had filed her crass intimations of inappropriate mutual fondness between mates well away for some serious inner scoffing at a later date and had concentrated heavily on his perceived bounden duty, which seems to have expanded to consist of protecting Sherlock's 'fragile' heart as well as his physical body. And did he lay the slightest credence in what The Woman said of him when he thought it over later? Did he entertain seriously that _his_ care for Sherlock was far more than what is the considered norm for good mates? That _he_ might possibly be truly jealous of The Woman, or at least a bit envious? Wanting to be in Her Pradas, wanting to feel 'Sherlocked'? No, no, he did not. As such. Not consciously, at least.

Thank god for _that_.

Sherlock, after careful observation of the subject, has deduced John's deducements: i.e., that verbal to-and-fro that occurred between he and The Woman that time in the deserted warehouse was nothing more than a bloody scarlet herring she had readied to cast into already murky waters, designed to divert his attention along byways that fit nowhere in the mental map John Watson has been painstakingly constructing of one Holmes, Sherlock.

He can read it in every line on John's face, every tilt of his chin, every 'Ahem' and hesitation, what idiocy his good doctor has fallen prey to:

_He_ thinks of Sherlock a bit as one might think of an emotionally stunted child, at least as in regards to the romantic—or the sexual. He's actually bought (alright, only ever so marginally but _still_) into the idea of Sherlock being a bit of a nutter about people, which is to be expected. A bit off, more than a bit unattached and disenfranchised, and maybe even genuinely skewed, which is bosh, tosh and shite.

Sherlock's _clever_. It makes him no less human. _Obviously_.

But it's ever so perfect; it's exactly what Sherlock desires John to believe. He really couldn't have planned it any better himself, this whole scenario. And of course, since it exists now, Sherlock must needs make use of it. Because there is Jim, Jim the real nutter, waiting in the wings as it were. Bent on destruction.

This mental map of John's is all wrong, complete bollocks, but John has no earthly need to know that. Sherlock is more than content to have John casting about in what amounts to the imaginary dungeons of a cloud castle. Nay, he's encouraging it, by brooding. By acting the lovelorn, by wearing his 'heart' on his sleeve, by—yes, wait for it—sulking. Pouting and pining.

John thinks, reluctantly, that his flatmate's in love. Love, sweet love. He's absolutely correct, of course. But also, wrong. Wrong, wrong, all so very _wrong_.

It's delicious that he's concluded it's The Woman who's the object of Sherlock's ridiculous affections, though he's arrived at that conclusion erroneously—more, been driven there-and only because both Holmes brothers have done their utmost to belay John's plodding but usually incredible accurate mental processes. John 'gets' people; he's demonstrated many times he 'gets' Sherlock. But this time he's not been allowed to. Of course, Sherlock really doesn't enjoy herding John into obvious fields of falsehood, at least in regards to _him_, but it's completely necessary.

And mostly harmless. He hopes.

A genius always builds himself an out, doesn't he? The Woman certainly did and she's not all that, in comparison to Sherlock. Even if she did manage to get lucky, more often than not.

Really, she should be ever grateful that Sherlock fancied himself a pirate once upon a time. And fine, yes, alright, maybe maundering sentiment is more like mould spores than infection: once there's one growing on an afflicted body, there's bound to be more where the one came from.

But sentiment's spread, however intriguing, makes no never mind to Sherlock's true piece de resistance: John Watson's fallacy that Sherlock's been smitten at last.

Poor sod.

What's fortunate beyond that is that Sherlock's only displayed a very few slip-ups in John's presence: the aftermath of the semtax vest is one, the plain admission he's no friends other than John is another, and his supposed fascination with The Woman. Which is true enough but not in the way John thinks it is.

Again, with the hiding. Hiding in plain sight. Every single one of Sherlock's missteps had actually proved immensely useful in the long run.

To recap—because sometimes Sherlock does lose track as to what his ultimate goal is, here-this leads to the logical conclusion that John believes that, 1.) Sherlock does possess a modicum of feeling, though very much untried and very grudging; that, 2.) Sherlock is inexperienced in such ('Not my area', a blatant falsehood if ever there was one,) and that, 3.) Sherlock's perceived nascent emotional adolescence is all and entirely focused on the lovely perpetrator of the Scandal in Belgravia.

John likely thinks Sherlock's a virgin, as well, or at least quite inexperienced. Hah!

John could not be more wrong if he'd tried deliberately his hand at engineering his own self-deception. He has actually managed to discount and subvert all the mounting evidence of his flatmate's active emotional inner life by twisting the outward signs of it toward upholding a disgustingly unsupported hypothesis, an act of incompetence whish Sherlock would normally rail at him for and go on to happily belittle him for at length and acidulously. Not this time. No, sir.

Oh, but he _relishes_ it, though, Sherlock does. At least a little bit, because disguises, what? That's one of his many métiers. He plays along with and to the tune of the falsehood, acting to his best—his considerable—ability as the Man Left Behind by The Woman, and Pining. Literally, he is guised by his guise, concealed in plain sight. Bloody fuck, but life can't get more ironic, can it?

Sherlock's betting it can, and will shortly, which is actually why he's bothering with this nonsense.

It's a bit like the horrid game that continues on with Moriarty, actually. No, it's exactly like. Moriarty knows precisely where to find Sherlock but continues to stay his hand, enjoying the build-up of tension. Sherlock, on the other hand, knows exactly what John _thinks_ he's deduced—incorrectly—and continues to feed the error with little 'clues' and thises and thatses like balls afire.

And naturally there is a higher purpose to all this and not only because it amuses Sherlock to act and posture.

It's much safer for John Watson, really, if he thinks Sherlock's a bit of an arse-backwards dolt when it comes to the finer feelings of love, attraction and affection. If he believes Sherlock does indeed have a heart but it's been given over to the next shiny object come strolling down the pike after the self-haled Consulting Criminal; a smart trollop is much preferable to a real psychopath, in John's eyes.

Sherlock's never deleted Shakespeare, though he's never bothered with the theories as to the great man's being really someone other—or several someones—than who he's been edified and elevated as, all these centuries. No—Shakespeare's said it, and said it well, and Sherlock's the heart of an actor, under that coat.

So, as he swans and broods and makes a general nuisance of himself, 'brooding', he thinks to the following gems of the Bard, for they are true in the sense that anything so bloody obvious is 'truth':

_As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him._

(This, Sherlock resolves, shall be done, and by his will alone. Moriarty's dubious shiny has all worn off, now he's openly targeted John. Better off dead.)

_And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything._

(Oh, dear John. Dear John.)

_Better three hours too soon than a minute too late._

(Sherlock will never make the same mistake twice.)

_I say there is no darkness but ignorance._

(Credo._ Obviously_.)

_If music be the food of love, play on._

(It's not Sherlock's fault John doesn't realize who he plays for, is it? Not _fault_ at all but deliberate _design_. Sherlock's fucking a step above mere clever.)

_Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better._

(And John again, always John. _Sentiment_, Sherlock has come to realize,may well be a condition more closely resembling mitochondria than mould. Sherlock chases facts, not fancy, always. Even into the wilds of the 'Area'.)

There's the one last one, the one set of priceless words strung together by the Bard that rings dour bells in his hindbrain, the one that niggles away at him at night when he's attempting to concentrate on his latest set of soil samples and fucks with his precariously balanced peace on the calm days John sits cheerfully in his armchair and blogs them. That's the one which troubles Sherlock the most of all of the words, the pointy sharp words. For guises and disguises are all very well in the end and the best part of valour is running away, true, and _he loves John Watson_ as he has never loved another, and never will, but:

_Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment._

It is to this last end he acts and acts, never ceasing to recall his chosen role, and all his guise goes to prevent. Acts as _himself_, as the Great Sherlock Holmes, World's Only Consulting Detective, and a bloody blithering dunce when it comes to self-deduction as to his own set of sentiments, at least in John's eyes. And is content to be defined as John Watson's charge, his colleague, his flakey, poncy, annoyingly _irritating_ mate, now smitten, now felled by the wiles of The Woman. The one believed to be so foolishly cast in useless, pointless, wearying ardour over a mere shadow, a construct—The False Woman.

Never John, not his John, and therein lies the essence of his insurance.

He knows he will hope one day, in some possible future moment, perhaps pointlessly, but such is the contrary nature of men, that perhaps John Watson will believe one last thing of him, in the end:

_Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall._

Because all the rest of Sherlock is naught but guises and disguises. And sentiment, naturally, but he'll never say a word to _that_.

Fin.


End file.
